Mount Antero
We had been wanting to do this trail for a long time. It's tough to do a trail like Mount Antero when Chinaman's Gulch, Iron Chest and others are in the immediate area. This is a fantastic trail, though, with a very high pucker factor all the way through.
It was supposed to rain all day in Denver and it was raining all the way to the trail so we were thinking we might even see snow when the elevation got really extreme. What happened instead is that we were above the weather all day and we didn't see much more than sprinkles every once in awhile. It was cool to watch the clouds move below us all day.
The initial set of switchbacks are pretty severe and tight. But then when we got to the second set of switchbacks Jenn decided she'd had enough so they went back home. The rest of us continued up to the top.
The second set was steep, loose, and challenging in spots. What a rush! We did finally drive up to the top and stopped. It was massively windy and very cold. But what a view! We could see the red Grizzly Mountain, Mount Princeton, and Mount Antero looming over us. The foot trail to the top of Antero looked pretty difficult and it was already hard to breathe so we decided not to hike it. The clouds would move over the peak sometimes and it looked nasty over there anyway.
It was also cool to talk to a group of people digging for gems. They were a group from Arvada and really had a lot of interesting gear and information. They told us that someone had recently found a stick of aquamarine a couple inches long that went for $1000. Pretty nice for a day's work.
We came down the mountain and went over to Mount White. That was cool too, to watch the clouds in the valley over on the other side, next to Mount Shavano. We should have done that one first, so we could see the trail over on Antero.
It was easy to see where all the trails went -- you can see for miles up there. It was a fun trip!
Reports from Other Days: 5
Use the arrows or dots to flip through the previews of the other reports for Mount Antero. Click one of them to read more and see all of the photos from that day.
